STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ASSESSMENT OF BEAMS IN AN ABANDONEDCOMMERCIAL BUILDING USING NDT AND FINITE ELEMENTANALYSIS

The increasing number of abandoned buildings in developing countries highlights the pressing need for a credible means to determine the safety and soundness of reinforced concrete(RC) structures. This paper offers a forensic investigation of the RC beams in the abandoned commercial structure that halted construction because of suspected material strength and construction quality. To meet this challenge, this study provides a framework that combines non destructive testing (NDT) with computational modeling. The rebound method is a penetration test. It is a reliable method to determine the strength of damaged concrete. It is well suited to strength assessment of concrete near to the surface. It isaquick method and is particularly useful when drilling is not undertaken. It is accurate in comparison with other methods such as the Gill fall method. Rebound tests can be performed indepth. The rebound method measures the strength of concrete. It can determine the strength of concrete near to the surface. It is accurate to determine strength. It is relatively less accurate if the concrete is damaged. Moreover, the section cut-off method provides accurate results. It is carried out to determine strength. The method is well-suited to determine. The results showed large variations in the strength of the concrete for the beams, which is indicative of the varied standards of their construction and their less-than-full conformity to the nominal strength grade C30. Notwithstanding the above, it is apparent that there is potential within the results to satisfy the strength requirements of serviceability deflection. This lends support to the proposal to adopt a targeted repair strategy. Thus, this paper established that the combined usage of NDT and numerical models is a reliable and non-invasive method for assessing the status of deteriorated RC buildings. This method not only verifies the results attained through experiments done on the structure according to codes of practice but can also serve as a reliable guideline for future repair work.